


The Color Red

by booksong



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M, Fluff, awkward cuties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksong/pseuds/booksong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first time Gou has seen Samezuka's captain in a swimsuit.  It's the first time Seijuurou's seen <i>her</i> in a swimsuit.  It's clear both of them are ill-equipped to handle this situation.  Shameless fluff, blushing, and muscle-appreciation.  </p><p>Written for a kink meme prompt:  "So Seijuurou is the captain of the Samezuka team. Gou is the manager of the Iwatobi one. Both teams compete together.  Cue the two of them seeing each other at a meet, both only wearing swimwear, and nearly going into cardiac arrest over each other."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Color Red

_Focus. Focus._

Gou squinted down at the clipboard she’d brought along for just this purpose. In reality all it had on it was a piece of Iwatobi stationary with the school crest at the top, with some hastily scribbled notes on who would be swimming which style in the relay. She didn’t really need notes on that; she’d been watching the boys practice their strokes so often it would be impossible to forget. But it gave her something to pretend to look at, since she literally couldn’t look up without at least one lithe, muscled, mostly naked guy being in her field of vision. 

_Professionalism_ , she reminded herself firmly, adjusting the strap of her _professional_ red one-piece bathing suit, and tugging distractedly at the collar of the _professional_ Iwatobi swim jacket she wore over it. _You are the manager of the Iwatobi swim club and its team and you have to act like it. It will boost team morale and show Rin I can handle myself, no matter what he thinks of me._ The thought of her brother’s dismissive eyes hardened her resolve, and she chanced a glance up to see if she could deal with the scenery yet. 

Her jaw dropped slightly, involuntary, her grip on the clipboard going slack. No. _No._

Clearly, their opposition was fiendishly clever. There was no way that kind of timing was a coincidence. 

Directly in front of her line of sight, near the edge of the sprawling indoor pool, was Samezuka’s captain—what was his name? She couldn’t remember his name and it suddenly seemed completely irrelevant anyway, since he had just stripped off his shirt and jacket in a single graceful motion (did male swimmers _practice_ doing that for maximum effect?!) and was leaning forward into a stretch that did glorious, distracting things to his whole body. God, did he have a _body_. Of course, he was the captain of a championship team, so of course he’d be built, but still—! It was like his muscles had been sculpted so that her eyes could follow the hollows under his collarbone where the traps began, flowing out to the sharp, straight angles of his deltoids and spiraling down into the rippling flow of his biceps and forearms. And that wasn’t even taking into account the artistically incredible shape of his chest above his narrow hips and those abs and the tight curve of his—

_Stop it!_ Gou hurriedly turned her burning face away, though it felt like it took physical effort to pull her eyes from him, searching the pool deck for her own team. _If you’re going to stare, at least stare at muscles you have some loyalty too! Haruka’s deltoids are at least as impressive!_

But the dampness of the air, the sharp smell of chlorine, and all the exposed skin was making her kind of lightheaded, and when her eyes didn’t catch on Haruka or any of the Iwatobi boys they tracked involuntarily back to the captain. 

Who had frozen mid-stretch and was now staring back at her with those bright, oddly golden eyes. 

Gou squeaked and felt her face flame with mortification. She yanked her clipboard up desperately to eye level, trying to hide her face even as part of her brain was screaming how utterly stupid and unconvincing that had to look, reading a piece of paper with her nose mere inches from it. 

_He saw he saw he saw he probably noticed me looking but what does he expect with those MUSCLES UGH—!_

In a desperate effort to look like she was doing something constructive and not just slowly turning as red as her bathing suit, Gou tugged her swim jacket down her arms and shrugged free of it, draping it (professionally!) over one arm and trying to frown importantly across the pool as if evaluating it. In reality she was still hoping desperately that one of the Iwatobi boys would appear and provide a distraction in the form of questions from Rei or silly comments from Nagisa, or barring that, triceps. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that the Samezuka captain had straightened up from his stretch, but was still staring in her direction. 

She gulped.

 

 

Samezuka’s swim captain did in fact have a name, and it was Mikoshiba Seijuurou. Although he was having a very difficult time remembering that at the moment, when there was a _sinfully_ cute girl in a swimsuit standing on their pool deck right in front of him. 

He’d met the manager of Iwatobi’s team before a couple times, and from the first flicker of those bright eyes his heart seemed to automatically kick up every time he was near her. He had no idea what had possessed him so that the first words out of his mouth to her had been, "Hey, you’re kinda cute,” but they were out there. And at least she’d smiled instead of slapping him the way other girls might have. And she’d been perfectly friendly to him the few other times they’d met, always with that sweet little tilt of a smile that either knocked him speechless or babbling.

But she’d never shown up in a swimsuit herself before and _wow that looks good on her_. It didn’t matter that it was a one piece, that was somehow totally her style, and it fit her curves in all the right places…he swallowed against a throat suddenly gone dry. 

He wasn’t proud of how long it took him to realize he was openly staring at her, and his mouth was even open a little. Not cool, but at the same time…the color red looked amazing on her, bright against the more burnished red of her hair. He didn’t know if he’d had a favorite color before today, but he had one now.

He was so desperate for an excuse to talk to her, he thought he might have imagined her looking at him. He could have sworn she’d been staring when he’d become aware of her presence (and her swimsuit’s presence). But if she hadn’t been, how pathetic was it for him to try and convince himself of it? 

Then again, if they kept having these joint practices and competitive relays, it would be pretty pathetic to just stare at her from afar every time too. 

He could be friendly. He could start a normal conversation with her that would _not_ end in him blurting out something about how good her suit looked against her pale skin, or that he would give anything to have her smile at him again, or that she was perfectly welcome to stare at his body if that’s what she had, in fact, been doing. 

Of course, that plan fell apart the second he opened his mouth to greet her.

 

 

“Yo, Matsuoka-sa—ah, Matsuoka-ch—Gou-san?”

Gou whirled to face him maybe a little too quickly to look casual. It had been so easy to talk to him previously, when he’d just been a mildly attractive, kind of eager guy who captained her brother’s team and helped her arrange joint practices. But he’d had _clothes_ on then. 

“It’s Kou,” was her automatic reply; she just managed to clamp down on her next words, which were attempting to bypass her brain and were going to be something about his stretches and what they did to his triceps. She settled for the inane but at least safe alternative of, “Hi—"

And it was then that she realized she’d never actually learned his name. In all the times they’d talked or arranged joint practices or meets, in her mind he’d always just been “Samezuka’s captain.” She thought she remembered her brother calling him something that started with an S…

“Seijuurou,” he blurted helpfully at exactly that moment, “Mikoshiba Seijuurou, but Seijuurou is fine, since we kind of know each other, and you’re Iwatobi’s manager and all…”, and she felt a sudden rush of affection for him that had nothing to do with muscles and everything to do with the fact that he had just helped her avoid yet another scene of flustered embarrassment. 

“Seijuurou-kun,” she repeated firmly and cheerfully, and was so occupied with composing herself by pretending to adjust her jacket over her arm that she completely missed the flush that colored the tips of his ears when she said his name.

“I-I didn’t mean to interrupt you if you were…getting ready…” She made a vague gesture with her hand to give it something to do, since he had moved within arm’s reach at some point, therefore putting every one of his solid, gorgeously defined muscles within reach too. 

“Oh, oh no it’s totally fine, it’s just habit, and then I just saw you standing here and you’ve never worn a swimsuit to the meets before— _which is fine_! It just looks…very...ador—red. On you.” For a moment his golden eyes flashed with distress and one of his hands half-raised as if he were going to put it to his face. Then it dropped back to his side. Even that simple motion used all of his arm muscles, or so it seemed to her. _Not_ that she was looking. 

“Thanks.” Her response to the compliment (if it had been one?) was automatic. “I thought it would kind of…I don’t know, boost morale, if I wore a swimsuit too. Even if I’m not swimming,” she added pointlessly. 

“That’s a great idea!” She was a little taken aback by his enthusiasm, and so was he, judging by the way he kind of tucked in his shoulders and lowered his chin after blurting it out. His broad, smooth shoulders and the knots of his deltoids…she blinked when he continued, still talking a little too fast, she thought. “You have a lot of great ideas, maybe sometime we could share notes—I mean not in a competitive way, I guess we’re kind of rivals, but it might benefit both of us and maybe we’d learn something new…”

That did seem like a good idea; despite the side benefits of having a legitimate excuse to watch four attractive, well-muscled young men show off their bodies on a regular basis, Gou really did take pride in being Iwatobi’s manager and helping her team improve. And as in that case, Seijuurou’s sensible, if somewhat babbled, proposal came with the current added attraction of getting to stand this close to him, nodding along with his words and occasionally allowing herself roaming, stolen glances across his abs and pectorals. 

“You guys must practice a lot…” he was saying, and she dimly noted that he was gesturing with his hands while he spoke, similar to how she’d been fidgeting earlier. It was kind of unexpected how ridiculously _cute_ , how earnest it made him look. But it also showcased his muscles so well…the tips of her fingers were tingling, as though there was some magnet that was drawing them inexorably up and forward…

She had a feeling in her stomach, both sinking and wildly fluttering, that her hands might be about to get away from her soon if she didn’t put some distance between them.

And her feet didn’t feel like they were about to cooperate on that front either. 

Oh, this was _such_ a lost cause. 

 

“I-I can tell you practice a lot too...or—or work out…” Despite her cheerful expression there was a tiny unevenness to her voice that was almost like a stutter, and she was blushing a little and it made him weak in the knees. “Your biceps, here…”

When her fingertips ghosted suddenly over his skin, he froze up completely, his eyes going wide. Her fingers, which had been starting to trace the outline of his upper arm, stopped too.

“Oh… _oh_ , um, sorry.” Her face had gone redder, and he wondered if he’d horribly offended her by stiffening up. It must have seemed like he hated her touching him, when it was really the opposite. “I was just comparing them…out of curiosity…” Her voice trailed off. He thought he heard her murmur something on the end of a breath, something like “not _fair_ ”. She was still looking fixedly at the curve of his shoulder, and she hadn’t removed her hand either, and even if she was only doing it out of clinical curiosity it was making him dizzy being studied like this, with her so close he could feel her warm breath raising goosebumps on his skin. 

“Oh, yeah, well, I practice a lot…but I bet you could give me some tips…I mean your team’s in great shape, they’re really lucky to have you…I mean, you’re cute and competent, that’s—“ He’d just done it again, just blurted out that she was cute right to her face. _Why—?!_ A lock of her hair slid across one bare shoulder when she glanced up at him with those bright eyes gone a little shy (probably his fault for blurting stupid things) and this was really getting to be too much. 

And that was when the hand that had been resting on his upper arm made a smooth, almost unconscious stroking motion down toward the curve of his elbow, and that was it. 

He shifted his feet, not sure whether he intended to move to calm the hot shivers that had started to course through him, or to move away from her just a little, just enough to escape from what the feel of her hand was doing to him. 

It didn’t really matter, because one of his feet caught something not entirely solid, his heel dipped over empty space, and the puddles of water that gathered naturally on the edge of the pool did the rest. 

The next thing he knew, he was falling, sinking, kicking instinctively, and then surfacing, still trying to process what had just happened, and she was crouching on the edge of the pool, red hair, red suit, red face. 

And his first thought was not about how stupid that had to have looked, falling into a pool when you were the captain of a swim team. His first thought was that the overheard lights were kind of shining on her hair just right from this angle and she was _so beautiful_.

It took him a moment to realize she was stammering apologies at him in a river without pausing from breath in between. 

“No, no, that was completely my fault…” he heard himself say, at the same moment he thought _Where am I supposed to look!?_ He had to look up to acknowledge the hand she was now so sweetly holding out to him, but then he was also going to be looking at other things, like the bare curves of her legs right there at eye level and all that red fabric tight over her stomach and her flushed, earnest face…

He wanted to dunk his head under the water to cool it off and clear it, but he already looked like such a fool in front of her. He could also climb out himself, easily, but how could he resist an opportunity to hold her hand for even a few seconds? Plus it was ridiculously adorable that she was offering at all, even if there was no way she was strong enough to actually be of help. He was well aware that he was both tall and solid with muscle; she would never be able to lift him. 

Still, he tried for a sheepish smile as he clasped her offered hand, kind of lost in his bigger one; his fingers almost slipped free as his brain did another brief short-out at how warm and soft her hands were.

And then she leaned back and her beautiful face tensed a little with concentration and effort, and she gave a firm, braced pull on his arm. 

His mouth almost fell open.

She didn’t have swimmer’s muscles, no cut biceps or deltoids showing under her smooth skin, but when she pulled, he actually felt himself rising out of the water. 

_Holy shit—_

“WOW, you’re really damn strong, that’s…that’s pretty ho—I mean amazi—I mean, wait, stop, sorry, hang on, I… _I CHANGED MY MIND!_ ” He was probably red enough to match his hairline, he could feel it prickling and burning all over his face. He could also feel something else prickling, decidedly lower down and far more mortifying, which was why he was suddenly panicking.

He hated the startled, almost hurt look that crossed her face, but he didn’t even want to think about how she’d look at him if she realized something as innocent as helping him out of a pool had caused this kind of reaction. But this was too good to be real. An incredibly cute girl who looked really good in a swimsuit (especially a red one) _and_ who was actually strong enough to lift him? What lottery had he just won? 

She was still holding his hand, and when he attempted to tug it free, she didn’t let go. Okay, that was kind of hot too, but he really couldn’t get out like this. 

“I-Is this some pride thing, because really it’s okay, I kind of got you too close to the edge, I realize you have incredible biceps and can probably get out yourse— _PLEASE FORGET I SAID THAT_ …oh, just let me help already…” she was stammering again, scowling a little, and damn it was _so cute_ , for a moment he wanted to climb right out of the pool and pull her into his arms and screw the consequences. 

But no, he wouldn’t end this with an impression of him as a pervert. So when he saw she was stubbornly getting ready for another pull on his arm, he freaked. This was just too much; _she_ was just too much. 

She braced her feet, he made an unmanly yelping noise and jerked his hand back at the same moment, and the next moment there was a massive splash and everything was flailing limbs and skin and the rub of swimsuit material.

She was going to kill him, this girl.

 

Gou gasped, inelegantly coughing water and blinking to clear the burn of chlorine from her eyes. Her body registered that she was kind of draped over a warm, hard, bare chest and shoulder a few seconds before her brain did, which was why her first thought was, _Oh…oh this is really nice…_ , moments before the rest of her caught up and screamed _What are you DOING you shameless schoolgirl, look at yourself!_

She had kind of fallen _on_ Seijuurou, and he seemed to have been torn between trying to catch her and getting out of the way, with the result that she’d ended up somewhere in between, one arm around his neck to keep her head out of the water, the rest of her pressed against him from chest to midtorso. One of his arms had gone around her waist, she supposed to hold her steady when she had flailed on impact. She could feel his bicep flex against the side of her ribs as he shifted his grip, the same one she’d been ogling just minutes earlier, and felt lightheaded. How on earth had they gotten from there to here so quickly?

“I’m s-so SORRY!” They both sputtered it out at almost exactly the same time, pulling back to look at each other before being completely unable to handle one another’s flushed faces and gorgeous, too-bright eyes on top of their proximity. Seijuurou jerked his arm away as though burned, as if belatedly realizing it had been there at all, and part of Gou mourned and desperately wanted him to put it back. Then she almost went underwater again, having forgotten they were in the deep end and her feet were over a foot from the bottom. Luckily (or unluckily, she didn’t even know anymore), she remembered how to tread water before he had to catch her again. 

And now what was there to say? What was she supposed to say to him in this situation? _‘Sorry I fell on you and was kind of hanging on you and by the way your chest feels as amazing as it looks’?_

His short hair was plastered flat to his head and swept across his forehead now, and it looked so different and ridiculously adorable that she was suddenly and terribly tempted to reach up and brush her fingers through it, see if she could tease it into damp spikes. 

Clearly, exposure to chlorine was slowly strangling all her logical thought processes. 

He moved a little closer in the water, and she wanted to say she was fine, she could keep herself afloat now thanks, but the little movements of his arm muscles as he gently treaded water were distracting, and so was the way his eyes were so bright and so intent, and so was that little rivulet of water tracing down his jawline toward the sharp angles of his collarbones that she was now close enough to notice…

It was probably better ( _not unfortunate, not disappointing_ ) that they were interrupted at just that moment.

“Kou-chan? What are you doing in the pool?” Gou’s eyes snapped up as her team drew up to the edge of the pool, looking down with varying degrees of curiosity. Makoto’s voice and eyes were gentle and mellow as ever, but she couldn’t help but feel a brief flash of irritation. _Where were you and your amazing abdominals when I needed them earlier?_ Although there was someone that seemed to be missing…

“Why wouldn’t she be in the pool?”

Gou just barely managed to bite back her shriek when Haruka’s calm voice came from just over her shoulder. She moved sideways instinctively, and Seijuurou caught her shoulders to steady her as she almost knocked into him, and _how many times was she going to end up this familiar with his rock-solid abs today?_

Not that she minded. At all. 

“You should get out now though, they’re going to start,” Haruka informed her coolly, before stroking strongly away toward the starting platforms. 

Still bright red, Gou allowed herself to be lifted one-armed out of the pool and onto the lip by Makoto. She only dimly noticed the pleasant sight of his biceps rippling and his obliques tightening as he did so. 

When she turned around to sit, she found herself still looking at Seijuurou, who was rubbing the back of his neck and flickering his eyes almost shyly at her. 

“I guess I should go too, I’m in the relay,” he said, a little too heartily to be normal. 

She nodded, still feeling the imprint of everywhere her body had brushed against his.

He hesitated, appearing to be wrestling internally with something. Then all of a sudden, with a renewed flush of red on his cheeks, he blurted, “I know you’re the manager for Iwatobi, so of course you’ll want to cheer for your team, but maybe—maybe you could watch me too!”

He didn’t wait for a reply, although Gou didn’t think she’d have been able to give one, besides the soft squeaking noise she made. She watched him plunge away through the water, much choppier than Haruka but with a powerful surging intensity that was just as fascinating. 

After a moment she heard a soft snort behind her and turned to see the rest of the boys lined up, having watched the whole thing. Nagisa was grinning, a little slyer than his usual cheerful expression, Rei looked a tiny bit disapproving, and Makoto gave her a sleepy, knowing quirk of his mouth.

Gou opened her mouth to protest what she read on their faces, and then settled for yelling, “You heard him, the relay’s going to start, why aren’t you in the pool?”

Nagisa gave her a cheeky salute. “Right away, Manager Gou-chan!” He toed the edge of the pool, then turned and cupped one hand to his mouth for a dramatic stage whisper. “ _Careful, or you’ll end up star-crossed lovers, divided by bitter rivalries._ ” He took his hand away and said cheerfully, “Good luck though!”

All she could think to yell at the curve of his back and his fading giggle of laughter was, “It’s Manager _Kou_ -chan to you!” 

 

But when her eyes kept dragging back to the long, plunging arrow of his body during the relay, she pressed her knuckles to her mouth and told herself repeatedly that she was just being equal opportunity in admiring all the musculatures on display today. It wasn’t disloyal, and it certainly wasn’t a sign of something more than clinical admiration. She wasn’t sure that she believed herself, though.

When Seijuurou surfaced with a short gasp at the end of his laps, dragging his goggles up over his forehead, his eyes immediately sought out the color red, and found it. Red hair, red swimsuit, and…red face. But she was looking at him, and even when she knew he’d seen, she didn’t look away.

He managed to stay above water long enough to flash her a smile that he hoped looked cool and not just pathetically thrilled at this small, glorious victory. Then he ducked under again so that his whoop of joy came out as nothing but a cloud of bubbles. 

He had no idea if he’d won his leg of the relay just now, but as long as he had even a _chance_ of winning with her, it didn’t seem to matter much.

**Author's Note:**

> *This was my first ever kink meme fill and my first Free! fic. I'm very indebted to the ideas of the OP!anons in the kink meme for the prompt and the subsequent suggestions for extra details, including Gou being able to lift Seijuurou and him finding it ridiculously attractive. 
> 
> I love watching these two cuties every week and hope they get to interact more in the future!


End file.
